The Cadets and the Agrarian Question

Published:Nevskaya ZvezdaNo. 22, August 19, 1912.

      Signed:W. Frey.

      Published according to theNevskaya Zvezdatext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[1975],

      Moscow,Volume 18,

      pages278-287.Translated:Stepan ApresyanTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Intheir polemics againstPravda, the Cadets were
unable, much as they tried, to evade the question whether they are a
democratic or a liberal-monarchist party.

Thisis a highly important question. Its importance goes beyond that of
a general question of principle which provides material for elucidating
basic political concepts. Moreover, the question of the nature of the Cadet
Party, which claims leadership of the entire opposition, is inseparably
bound up withallthe fundamental questions of the Russian
emancipation movement in general. That is why anyone who takes an
intelligent interest in the election campaign, and appreciates its
significance for the political enlightenment of the masses, is hound to pay
the greatest attention to this controversy on the nature of the Cadet
Party.

TheCadetRechis now trying to stifle this controversy, to
shut out questions of principle by subterfuges and quarrelsome sallies (“a
lie”, “a distortion”, etc.), to rake up some abuse or other which the
liquidators flung at us when their personal annoyance, caused by sharp
organisational conflicts, was at its highest. All these are familiar and
battered methods used by people who realise their weakness in a controversy
over principles. And for this reason our reply to the Cadets must be a
repeated explanation of questions of principle.

Whatare the distinctions between democracy and liberalism in general?
Both the bourgeois democrat and the liberal (all liberals are bourgeois
liberals, but not every democrat is a bourgeois democrat) are opposed to
the old order, to absolutism, serfdom, the privileges of the upper social
estate, etc; they are for political liberty and a constitutional “legal”
system. That is the resemblance between them.

Nowfor the difference between them. The democrat represents the mass
of the population. He shares their petty-bourgeois prejudices, expecting,
for example, that a new, “equalised” redivision of all the land would not
only abolish all vestiges of serfdom (he would be justified in expecting
this), but would also undermine the foundations of capitalism (which is
entirely unjustified, fornoredivision of the land can do away
either with the power of the market and of money, or with the power and
omnipotence of capital). But the democrat believes in the movement of the
masses, in its strength and justice, and has no fear at all of this
movement. He advocates the abolition ofallmedieval privileges
without exception.

Theliberal does not represent the mass of the population but a
minority of the latter, namely, the big and middle liberal bourgeoisie. The
liberal ismoreafraid of the movement of the masses and of
consistent democracy than of reaction. Far from seeking complete abolition
of all medieval privileges, he franklydefendssome privileges
which are, moreover, very substantial ones, and strives to ensure that
these privileges are divided between the Purishkeviches and the Milyukovs
and not abolished altogether.

Theliberal defends political liberty and the constitution—invariably
in a curtailed form (such as the two-chamber system and many other things),
each curtailment amounting to the preservation of a privilege of the
serf-owners. Thus the liberal vacillates continuously between the
serf-owners and the democrats; hence the extreme, almost in credibleimpotenceof the liberals in all matters of any importance.

Russia’sdemocrats are the working class (proletarian democrats) and
the Narodniks and Trudoviks of all shades (bourgeois democrats). Russia’s
liberals are the Cadet Party, as well as the “Progressists” and most of
the non-Russian groups in the Third Duma.

Russiandemocrats have important victories to their credit, Russian
liberals none at all. The former have proved their ability to fight, and
their defeats have always been great, historic defeats of the whole of
Russia; moreover, even after a defeat some of the democrats’ demands have
invariably been met. The latter, i.e., the liberals, have provedincapableof fighting, and they have nothing to show in Russian
history but a constant contemptuous treatment of the liberals by the
serf-owners, comparable to the treatment of the serfs by their lords.

Letus test these general considerations and basic theoretical
postulates by the Cadets’ agrarian programme.Pravdatold the
Cadets that their undemocratic nature was evident from the speeches on the
agrarian question made by the Cadet Berezovsky the Second in the Third

				Duma.[1]

TheCadetReekanswered, in its issue No. 208: “The speech of
Berezovsky the Second was, as we know, a reaffirmation of the Cadet
agrarian programme.”

Seehow evasive this answer is! We said that the speech of Berezovsky
the

				First[2]was a specimen of undemocratic treatment of the question.Rechknows very well what we consider an indication of liberalism as distinct
from democracy. But it has no intention of analysing the question
seriously, of stating which precisely are the signs of the distinction
between liberalism and democracy that it, i.e.,Rech, considers
correct, and of ascertaining whether these signs are evident in the speech
of Berezovsky the First.Rechdoes nothing of the kind. It dodges
the issue, thus betraying a fundamental weakness and a guilty conscience.

ButevenRechcould not bring itself to disclaim the
responsibility of theentireCadet Party for the speech delivered
by Berezovsky the First. It admitted—it had to admit—this
responsibility by describing the speech as a “reaffirmation of the Cadet
agrarian programme”.

Splendid.And now we shall quote the main passages from that
indisputably and officially Cadet speech by a member of the Third Duma, the
Simbirsk landlord A. Y. Berezovsky. We shall see, in analysing the
speaker’s arguments, whether his point of view is democratic or
liberal. And we shall also see whether the Cadet gentlemen succeed in
refuting us in their vast press or at their meetings.

“Itis my deep conviction, said A. Y. Berezovsky in the Third Duma in
   October 1908 (we are quoting from the verbatim report published inRossiya[5]), “that this Bill [the Cadets’ land Bill] is far
   more beneficial to the landowners as well [and not to the peasants alone],
   and I say this, gentlemen, because I am familiar with agriculture, having
   engaged in it all my life and being a landowner myself. For a cultured
   farming system, the Bill of the party of people’s freedom would undoubtedly
   be more useful than the present system. One should not seize on the bare
   fact of compulsory alienation, be come indignant about it, and say that it
   is violence, but should see and appreciatewhat the things proposed in
   our Bill will amount to and how this compulsory alienation is to be
   effected....”

“Itis my deep conviction, said A. Y. Berezovsky in the Third Duma in
   October 1908 (we are quoting from the verbatim report published inRossiya[5]), “that this Bill [the Cadets’ land Bill] is far
   more beneficial to the landowners as well [and not to the peasants alone],
   and I say this, gentlemen, because I am familiar with agriculture, having
   engaged in it all my life and being a landowner myself. For a cultured
   farming system, the Bill of the party of people’s freedom would undoubtedly
   be more useful than the present system. One should not seize on the bare
   fact of compulsory alienation, be come indignant about it, and say that it
   is violence, but should see and appreciatewhat the things proposed in
   our Bill will amount to and how this compulsory alienation is to be
   effected....”

Wehave emphasised these truly precious words of Mr.
A. Y. Berezovsky’s—precious because of their rare veracity. Anyone who
recalls the speeches and articles of the Marxist Bolsheviks against the
Cadets at the time of the First Duma, or who takes the trouble to read
those articles now, will have to agree that in 1908 Mr. A. Y. Berezovsky
brilliantly confirmed the Bolsheviks of 1906. And we venture to predict
that any history that is at all impartial will confirmtheirpolicy three times over.

In1906 we said: “Don’t trust theroundof that
phrase—‘compulsory alienation’.” The point is,whowill compelwhom. If the landlords compel the peasants to pay for poor lands
three times their worth, in the fashion of the notorious compensation of
1861, then this kind of “compulsory alienation” will be alandlordreform beneficial to the landlords and ruinous to the

			      peasants.[3]

Theliberals, the Cadets, in raising the question of compulsory
alienation,manoeuvredbetween the landlords and the peasants,
between the Black Hundreds and the democrats. In 1906, they addressed
themselves to the democrats, trying to make their “compulsory alienation”
pass for something democratic. In 1908, they addressed themselves to the
diehards in the Third Duma, arguing that one should see “what this
compulsory alienation will amount to and how it is to be effected”.

Letus listen then to the official spokesman of the Cadet Party.

“Takethe Bill of the forty-two members of the First State Duma,” said
A. Y. Berezovsky. “It contained only [exactly, Mr. Berezovsky!] the
recognition of the necessity of alienating first of all those lands which are
not exploited by their owners themselves. Furthermore, the party of
people’s freedom favoured the establishment of local committees which
would have to ascertain at a certain time which lands are or are not subject to
alienation and how much land the peasants require to meet their needs. The
committees were to be constituted in such a manner as to ensure that half of the
members were peasants and the other half non-peasants.”

“Takethe Bill of the forty-two members of the First State Duma,” said
A. Y. Berezovsky. “It contained only [exactly, Mr. Berezovsky!] the
recognition of the necessity of alienating first of all those lands which are
not exploited by their owners themselves. Furthermore, the party of
people’s freedom favoured the establishment of local committees which
would have to ascertain at a certain time which lands are or are not subject to
alienation and how much land the peasants require to meet their needs. The
committees were to be constituted in such a manner as to ensure that half of the
members were peasants and the other half non-peasants.”

Mr.A. Y. Berezovsky omitted a trifle from his statement. Anyone who wishes to
look into the agrarian Bill prepared by Kutler (the Cadet Party’s
recognised authority on the agrarian question) and published in Volume II of the
Cadet publication,The Agrarian Question, will see that, by the terms
of the Bill, the chairmen of the committees were to be appointed by the
government, i.e., they too were to be representatives of the landlords.

Butlet us assume even that A. Y. Berezovsky expressed the Cadet views more
accurately than Kutler. Let us assume that A. Y. Berezovsky saideverythingand that the Cadets actually want committees made up ofequal numbersof peasants and “non-peasants”, without
representatives of the class government. What then? Will anyone dare to assert
that such a Bill is democratic?

Democracyis the rule of the majority. Only universal, direct and equal
elections can be called democratic. Only such committees are democratic as have
been elected by theentirepopulation on the basis of universal
suffrage. This follows from the general, basic, elementary truths of democracy
so indisputably that it even seems strange to have to explain it to the Cadet
gentlemen.

Onpaper, the Cadets recognise universal suffrage. Butin reality, with
regard to one of the most important questions of the Russian emancipation
movement, the agrarian question, they donotrecognise universal
suffrage! No subterfuges or reservations remove this fact, which is of prime
importance.

Anddo not imagine that the Cadets merely depart here from the principle of
universal suffrage, from the principle of democracy. No. They take as a basis adifferentprinciple, the principle of “agreement”
between the old and the new,between the landlord and the peasant, between the Black Hundreds and the
democrats. What the Cadets proclaim is:

half to one side and half to the other.

Thisis a typical principle of the vacillating liberal-monarchist
bourgeoisie. What this bourgeoisie wants is not theabolitionof
medieval privileges, but theirdivisionbetween the landlords and the
bourgeoisie. Indeed, how can anyone deny that to grant the
“non-peasants” (i.e., the land lords, to put it bluntly)equalitywith the peasants, who make up seven-tenths of the population,
meanspreservingandreaffirmingmedieval privileges? What
else did medieval privileges amount to but that the landlord meant as much in
politics as hundreds and thousands of peasants?

Fromequalityof the landlords and the peasants there can be no other
outcome but a division of privileges between the landlords and the
bourgeoisie. That was precisely the case in 1801, when the landlords ceded
one-thousandth of their privileges to the nascent bourgeoisie, while the peas
ant masses were doomed tohalf a century(1861+50=1911) of the
agony of disfranchisement, humiliation, slow starvation, extortion of taxes,
etc. Besides, it should not be for gotten that in 1861 the landlords, ceding
one-thousandth of their political privileges to the bourgeoisie (the Zemstvo,
urban and judicial reforms, etc.), began themselves to develop economically into
a bourgeoisie by setting up distilleries and sugar refineries, joining the
boards of joint-stock companies, and so on.

Weshall see in a moment the final outcome of this “equality” of a
negligible number of landlords and a huge number of peasants, as pointed out by
Mr. A. Y. Berezovsky himself. But first we must stress the great significance of
Berezovsky’s statement that the vaunted committees would have to
“ascertain which landsareorare not subjectto
alienation and how much land the peasantsrequireto meet their
needs”.

Allthe talk about various “norms” of allotment for the peasants,
etc., is nothing but empty words with which, incidentally, our Narodnik
intellectuals, including the most “Left” of them, often lull
themselves and the peasants. Theonlyimportant question is: will all
the lands be subject to alienation or not? And, in the latter case,whois to decide “which are not subject”? (I do not speak ofwhois to determinethe amount of the compensation, for the very idea of compensation for
medieval privileges is a liberal-bourgeois principle, one that is
radically, at bottom, absolutely un-democratic and anti-democratic).

Allthe clauses of the Cadets’ land Bills—clauses which have been
drafted in detail and bureaucratically polished—are a useless
bureaucratic undertaking. The only important question is:whois
to determinewhichlands are to be alienated andon what
terms? The most ideal Bill is no more than chicanery if it evades this
question.

Buthow does Mr. Berezovsky decide this sole important question? For
it, should be clear that, given equality of the peasants and
“non-peasants”, there will be no agreement in most cases, nor, indeed, is
it necessary to draft Bills for an amicable settlement between the
serf-owners and the serfs of yesterday. The serf-owners are always
agreeable to an “amicablesettlement” with them, even without
any laws.

AndMr. Berezovsky gave a clear answer to the burning question, in
speaking to the Third Duma diehards. Listen to what he said next:

“Inview of this, that general concrete work on the spot would, of
   course, bring to light both the amount of land ‘available’ [listen
   to this!]  for alienation and the amount of land required for the peas ants
   [required for what? Would it be for performing services? But that is
   something the serf-owners have always agreed to! I, and finally, the
   peasants themselves would see to what extent it was possible to meet their
   fair [ahem! God save us from lordly anger, lordly love and the landlord’s
   “fairness”] demands. Then it would all go through the Duma and [mark this
   well!] the Council of State and, after being recast [ahem!], would be
   sanctioned in final form [i.e., made law]. This methodical work [it
   certainly could not be more “methodical”!] would no doubt result in
   really meeting the true needs of the population and thereby in pacifying
   and preserving the cultural farms, whichthe party of people’s freedom
   has never wantedtodemolish unless strictly necessary.”

“Inview of this, that general concrete work on the spot would, of
   course, bring to light both the amount of land ‘available’ [listen
   to this!]  for alienation and the amount of land required for the peas ants
   [required for what? Would it be for performing services? But that is
   something the serf-owners have always agreed to! I, and finally, the
   peasants themselves would see to what extent it was possible to meet their
   fair [ahem! God save us from lordly anger, lordly love and the landlord’s
   “fairness”] demands. Then it would all go through the Duma and [mark this
   well!] the Council of State and, after being recast [ahem!], would be
   sanctioned in final form [i.e., made law]. This methodical work [it
   certainly could not be more “methodical”!] would no doubt result in
   really meeting the true needs of the population and thereby in pacifying
   and preserving the cultural farms, whichthe party of people’s freedom
   has never wantedtodemolish unless strictly necessary.”

Thiswas said by a spokesman of the “party of people’s freedom”,
which it would be fair to call the party of landlord pacification.

Itis perfectly clear from this that the “compulsory alienation”
proposed by the Cadets impliescompulsion of the peasants by the
landlords. Whoever sets out to deny this must prove that in the
Council of State the peasants predominateover the landlords! “Equality” of the landlords and the peasants to begin
with, and in the end—unless an amicable settlement is reached—a
“recasting” of the draft by the Council of State.

“Theparty of people’s freedom has never wanted to demolish the
cultural farms unless strictly necessary,” said the landlord
A. Y. Berezovsky, who probably considers his farm “cultural”. But we will
ask:whois to decidewhosefarm is “cultural” and in
what sense, and where does “strict necessity” begin?  Answer: this will
be decided, first by a committee made up ofequal numbersof
landlords and peasants, and then by the Council of State.

Wellthen? Are the Cadets a democratic party or a counter revolutionary
party of the liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie? Are they a party of “people’s
freedom” or of landlord pacification?

Russia’sbourgeois democrats, i.e., the Trudoviks and Narodniks of all
shades, have grievously erred in expecting the transfer of the landed
estates to the peasants to bring about “equalisation”, the spread of
“labour principles”, and so on; they have also erred by obscuring, with
empty talk about various “standards” of landownership, the question
whether there is to be medieval land tenure or not, but these democrats
have helped the new to force out the old and have not drafted Bills to
enable the old toretaina number of privileges.

Really,to deny that the Cadets are not a democratic party but a party
of the counter-revolutionary, liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie, means simply
flying in the face of well-known facts.

Inconclusion we shall briefly examine a question which might well be
asked by certain naïve Cadets. If the “compulsory alienation”
suggested by the Cadets implied compulsion of the peasants by the
landlords, why did the majority of the landlords reject it?

Thisquestion was answered unintentionally by Mr. Milyukov, in his
speech in the Third Duma on October 31, 1908, when he spokeas a
historian. Milyukov thehistorianhad to admit that until the
end of 1905 both the government and thelandlordshad regarded the
peasantry as aconservativeforce. At the Peterhof meeting on July 19–26, 1905—that meeting
paved the way for the Bulygin

Duma[6]—A. A. Bobrinsky, Naryshkin and other pillars of the future
Council of the United Nobility werein favour of giving the peasants a
predominant position in the Duma. At that time Witte held that the
mainstay of the autocracy should be (and could be) the “peasant
democrats”,notthe nobilityorthe

			     bourgeoisie.[4]

“Gentlemen,”said Mr. Milyukov, “this is an
   interesting moment because it is at this moment that the government has
   conceived the idea of compulsory alienation. (Voices: “It’s
   Kutler’s idea.”) Yes, Kutler’s, gentlemen....Kutler is drafting a
   Bill on compulsory alienation....“Hehas been working on it, gentlemen;his work
   continued for a month or two—I cannot say exactly—until the
   end of 1905. It went on unhampered until the well-known Moscow events
   took place, after which there was a noticeable change in sentiment.”

“Gentlemen,”said Mr. Milyukov, “this is an
   interesting moment because it is at this moment that the government has
   conceived the idea of compulsory alienation. (Voices: “It’s
   Kutler’s idea.”) Yes, Kutler’s, gentlemen....Kutler is drafting a
   Bill on compulsory alienation....

“Hehas been working on it, gentlemen;his work
   continued for a month or two—I cannot say exactly—until the
   end of 1905. It went on unhampered until the well-known Moscow events
   took place, after which there was a noticeable change in sentiment.”

OnJanuary 4, 1906, the Marshals of the Nobility met in congress. The
congress rejected Kutler’s draft, which it knew from hearsay and private
reports. It adopted an agrarian programme of its own (the future
“Stolypin” programme). In February 1906 Minister Kutler resigned. On
March 30, 1906, the Witte Cabinet (with its “peasant” programme) was
succeeded by the Gurko-Goremykin Cabinet (with its “Stolypin” programme,
a programme of the nobility and the bourgeoisie).

Theseare the facts which Milyukov thehistorianhad to admit.

Theinference from them is obvious. The “Cadet” Bill on compulsory
alienation was a Bill prepared by Kutler,Ministerin the Witte
Cabinet, who dreamed of an autocracy supported by the peasantry! When the
peasants’ democratic movement was on the rise, attempts were made to bribe
the movement, to corrupt it, to deceive it with a Bill for “peaceful”,
“compulsory alienation”, a “second emancipation”, a Bill for a
bureaucratic “compulsion of the peasants by the landlords”.

Thisis what the facts of history tell us. The Cadets’ agrarian Bill is
a Witte Minister’s plan for “playing” at peasant Caesarism.

Thepeasant democrats did not live up to expectations. They
showed—probably more clearly in the First Duma than in 1905—that since
1861 they had becomepolitically conscious. With a peasantrysuch as this, the Kutler-Cadet Bill became an absurdity: the
peasants, far from letting themselves be hoodwinked in the old fashion,
would have used even the Cadets’ local land committees to organise a new
onslaught.

OnJanuary 4, 1906, the Marshals of the Nobility correctly decided that
the Bill prepared by the liberal landlords (Kutler and Co.) was a hopeless
affair, and cast it aside. The civil war hadoutgrownliberal-bureaucratic scheme-making. The class struggle had dispelled the
vision of “social peace” and raised the issue squarely: “either the
Stolypin way or the Trudovik way”.

[1]Seep. 246 of this volume.—Ed.

[2]BothPravdaandRechwere mistaken in speaking of
Berezovsky the Second. The Cadet is Berezovsky theFirst,
Alexander Yeleazarovich, a Simbirsk landlord.  —Lenin

[3]Seepresent edition, Vol. 10, pp. 414–47.—Ed.

[4]SeeReport of the People’s Freedom Groupon the Second Session
of the Third Duma (St. Petersburg, 1909), p. 43. It is unfortunate—very
unfortunate—that the Cadets didnotpublish Berezovsky’s speech.
—Lenin

[5]Rossiya(Russia)—a reactionary, Black-Hundred daily
published in St. Petersburg from 1905 to 1914. From 1906 it was the
official organ of the Ministry of the Interior.

[6]TheBulygin Duma—an advisory “representative institution”
which the tsarist government promised to convene in 1905. The Bill to
establish an advisory Duma, and the Regulations on elections to the Duma
were drafted by a commission under Bulygin, Minister of the Interior, and
made public on August 6 (19), 1905. The Bolsheviks proclaimed and carried
out an active boycott of the Bulygin Duma. The government was unable to
convene it, and the October general political strike swept it out of
existence.